She lives in a pretty little town surrounded on three sides by the ocean. She and the town are the perfect de-stressers (de-stressors?) so even though we would miss spending a day together, I knew the town would be calming, and I could unwind until she and I could head out on adventures. It would be just the two of us since her daughter was away at college and her boyfriend was busy.
Friday morning before she left, she gave me a house key and the keys to her daughter’s car. (As if I were going to drive where streets are based on ancient trails, intersections are circles, and parallel parking skills are mandatory!) I printed a map of the town, layered my clothes, and began my walking tour. The fall air was crisp, the colors were riotous, and I hadn’t gone a block before realizing I had forgotten my map. I don’t trust my navigational skills or my memory, so I went back for it and started out again.
Ah, how free and unencumbered I felt. My hair was down and enjoying rare freedom. My spirit sang. How nice of the city fathers to build sidewalks, and thank you, citizens, for decorating your trees with handkerchief ghosts. And look, there goes yet another runner and a couple walking their dogs. (These people love their dogs!) Downtown, I window-shopped, ate a turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich at Foodie’s Feast, and bought a pumpkin pie at a mini version of Whole Foods. I found an ice cream parlor and indulged in a scoop of apple pie ice cream. Could it get any better than this?
I planned to spend the rest of the afternoon reading, napping, and just being zen. I took a different route back, saw different handkerchief ghosts, and read name plates declaring the antiquity of houses built before the Revolutionary War. A block from my friend’s apartment, I stuck my hand in my pocket for the door key. Wasn’t in that pocket. Not the other pocket either. Maybe I had put it in my purse. No, not there. Had I lost it? My pockets were too deep for it to have fallen out. Maybe I hadn’t locked the door. Wishful thinking. The door was locked, and the credit card trick only works on TV. My friend wouldn’t be home for another four hours.
I didn’t feel so zen any more. I felt vulnerable and old. I had forgotten to put the key back in my pocket when I went back for the map. My mind had betrayed me. The feeling washed over me like a bucket of cold water in slow motion. I was old. Soon, I would need a keeper, someone to look after me because I could no longer navigate the world. How was I going to get home if I couldn’t remember how to get around in an airport? Suddenly, my back was stooping, and I felt the need for a cane. I sat on the steps, nearly in tears, steeping in this new and unfamiliar feeling.
Gradually, I became of aware of a new feeling, more physical than metaphysical. I needed to go to the bathroom. Whatever it took, I had to get into the apartment. My bladder didn’t care that I was in the middle of an existential break down. It wanted relief. The sooner, the better.
Urgency kicked my brain out of self-pity and into gear. My friend lives in a semi-basement apartment. The front part is almost all underground, but the back is at normal ground level. Maybe she had left the back door unlocked. No luck. The mind that had forgotten the door key was now in turbo drive. It scanned possibilities. (None of those possibilities included contacting another human, including my friend. That would have admitted defeat.)
The bedroom windows. She always slept with the window open. I didn’t remember her ever closing it. I walked around to the side of the house. The window was fairly close to the ground and open, but the screen was secure, and, thanks to airport security, I had no flat, rigid object with which to pry it off.
I moved down the side of the apartment to check the other windows. At her daughter’s bedroom, there was a window with no screen. I paused and took a deep breath. I pushed; the window slid up with ease. Yes! The window slid down with equal ease. A minor problem. The greater problem was the height of the window from the ground. Even though I was getting younger by the minute, I still couldn’t hoist myself up high enough to shinny through the window. Ah, a bucket, just waiting for such a moment as this. Bucket in place, window propped open, I pushed myself through head first, tumbling onto the bed, then the floor.
I closed the window and locked it. (After all, if I could get in, couldn’t a burglar?) I headed for the bathroom, all the while listening for sirens. I was sure that if anyone had seen my legs hanging out of the window, they had called the police. Let them come. I would have proudly told my story to a policeman. I would have left out the part about feeling old. He wouldn’t have believed me.
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